


bubble gum love

by indraaas



Category: The Daevabad Trilogy - S. A. Chakraborty
Genre: F/M, anyway dumb drabble this is a dumb drabble dump, i live for uni aus they're all I can write, more characters will be added if and when they show up, title based off the song bubble gum, unedited as all future updates will be
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:20:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24192724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indraaas/pseuds/indraaas
Summary: Dorm life as an upper-year student is a neverending litany of murder plots and annoying neighbours.  Nahri quickly learns that the two are not mutually exclusive.AKA, the Daevabad uni au nobody asked for.
Relationships: Darayavahoush e-Afsin/Nahri e-Nahid
Comments: 11
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

_Scrape._

_Scrape._

_Scrape._

“What’s the difference between first degree and second degree murder?” Nahri asks, selecting ‘c’ on her quiz. 

“First degree is premeditated, second degree is either spur of the moment or premeditated,” Jamshid replies with the same kind of false interest parents show when their kid glues the pasta they were making for dinner to the 3D printer. 

_Scrape._

_Scrape._

“What’s the difference in jail time?”’

Jamshid flips the page of his book - collectors edition of ‘The Art of War’, courtesy of his rich-bitch boyfriend - and shrugs. “25 to life for first, 10 to 25 for second.”

The words and numbers on her screen are just that - words and numbers. Her brain refuses to register them as anything _but_ that, and every time it seems like the piece of shit is willing to have mercy on her, the sonuvabitch living upstairs starts up again. Nahri blinks furiously, pinches her cheeks, and shakes her head violently. One more question. If she gets this right, she gets a perfect 100 and can opt out of the final. 

_37) Inactive prothrombin is converted to thrombin by which two coagulation factors?_

Easy-peasy lemon squeezy. She pulled an all-nighter for _this_? What a waste. 

_Scrape._

“Fuck you, douchecanoe!” she sings, hitting ‘a’ and then ‘submit’. As the results load, she flips the ceiling the bird and grins. “You can’t get the best of me.”

Nahri’s smile is wiped clean off when the results pop up and read ‘36/37’ instead of 37/37. “Oh no. Nonononono _no_.” Her shaky fingers scroll down to the incorrect answer and- 

  1. _You selected a) CF10a and CF7a._



_Correct answer: b) CF10a and CF5a._

_Scraaaaape._

Nahri slams her laptop shut, throwing it on her pillows as she marches over to Jamshid’s desk and nearly crushes the pack of gripping pads in her fist. She wheels around with the kind of military precision that would bring Jamshid to tears any other day and heads for the door, ominously stating, “You better hope that boyfriend of yours is a good lawyer, Jamshid.”

“Muntadhir does corporate law,” Jamshid calls after her. “Don’t track any blood back to the room, I just cleaned the floor.”

Nahri doesn’t take the elevator because if she stays still for longer than ten seconds, the sheer murderous rage boiling in her might actually cause her to implode if her shaking hands are any indication. Instead, she takes the stairs, which only fuels her fury - first this asshole causes her to flunk a quiz which means she has to write the final, and _then_ she has to do cardio? A swift death would be merciful.

Ali from her intro psych class in first year jumps out of his skin as she stalks across the eighth floor looking for 812. “Nahri! What’re you-?”

“Not now, I have to go kill someone.”

“...I think I’m going to get the RA.” Ali shuffles off with the speed and grace of a newborn zebra.

The label on 812 originally reads ‘Darayavahoush’, but it’s scratched out and now states ‘Dara’. Dara Died in December. Nahri’s always loved a good alliteration. Her knocks are more like punches, which would scare the high hell out of anyone at nine pm, but there’s that _fucking_ scraping noise as Dara takes his sweet time in opening the door.

Dara is very cute and it’s going to be a pity to close those gorgeous green eyes of his forever, but it truly is what it is.

“Can I help you?” he asks.

Nahri ignores him and stalks inside, grabbing his chair and flipping it upside down. In her head, this went a lot smoother: she entered the room, put the grips on in one quick motion, and then tripped him on her way out. In reality, her nails are too short to get the peels off the back and her fingers are still trembling a little, so by the time she’s got the first grip on, Dara’s leaning against the door and watching her with a confused, if not slightly amused look on his face. 

After she gets all four grips on, she slams the chair down upright and huffs. “You made me fail my quiz.”

“I didn’t write it for you, how did I do that?”

“By being a noisy asshole,” she snaps. “What were you doing that was making so much noise? Racing across the room in your chair?”

Dara props the door open and walks over, wafting her with the pleasant tones of orange and sandalwood as he sits on the chair and scrapes it back, then tilts it back like those little hot-shit wannabes in middle school did during class. “I was thinking about - _shit_!” he yelps as the chair slides out and he goes tumbling, catching himself on his elbow.

The premed in Nahri demands she check for injuries. The vindictive part of Nahri preens. She settles for the middle: “You good?”

“I cut my elbow,” Dara mutters, holding it up to her. Nahri smiles proudly. “Prothrombin is converted to thrombin by coagulation factors 10a and 5a. That should be happening to your cut soon.”

Dara stares at her blankly. “You are speaking Arabic, right.”

“Clearly,” Nahri says dryly. “Anyway, when you feel like apologizing for making me fail my quiz, I live in 712 and I like caramel lattes. My name is Nahri.”

She doesn’t give him the chance to reply, heading for the elevators and waving at Ali and the RA, Lubayd, as they pass. “He needs a bandaid, but he should be fine.”

* * *

Jamshid takes one look at her over the top of his book and groans. “He was cute, wasn’t he.”

“Immensely,” Nahri says, stretching out in bed and closing her eyes. She’ll cat-nap now and then start prepping for the final. One week is plenty of time to get ready, probably. 

“Do I wanna know what’s in your hand?”

Nahri holds up the Starbucks card with a smug smile. “Odds this thing is fully loaded?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> unedited, total stream of conscious, etc etc and yes cresyl violet is meant to be spelled like that

Nahri wakes up well rested. 

The sun is shining, birds are chirping, and the lab bench she’s asleep on is soft and welcoming.

Her stomach falls to the floor before she does. Her stains, her _stains._ She swallows, but her mouth is so dry all it does is cause her tongue to stick to her palate. Water. She needs water. 

“Do you always look this horrified waking up? Life that dreary?”

"What time is it?" Nahri demands, snapping on gloves and shoving past Dara to assess the damage. She makes quick work of pulling out the slides and placing them on a paper towel gently, because even if her hands are vibrating at the speed of sound, violating Nisreen’s lab rules scares her more than the thought of the last of her samples being ruined. 

Dara catches a bottle of 90% acetic acid that her elbow clips and balances it on one hand, shrugging. "Eleven? You looked tired so I turned your alarm off."

Not for the first time since he entered her life, Nahri wishes she'd done the smart thing and kicked him right out. Whoever said it's hard to stay mad at people who mean well _clearly_ hasn't spent precious waking hours in a gross, stuffy lab pilfering chemicals from _other_ labs because _your_ labs budget is shot to fucking shit and, ok, maybe she's freaking out a _little_ and this could be fine.

Maybe.

"My stains," Nahri moans, rinsing off the cresyl violet and holding the slide up to the light. There's no point in looking at it under the microscope. She knows a lost cause when she sees one - Exhibit A is peering over her shoulder, after all.

"If it marinates longer shouldn't it show up better?" Dara asks cluelessly.

"Dara, oh my _God_."

"What? Jamshid told me you'd been pulling all nighters, I figured you could do with an extra hour or two of sleep."

Nahri sighs, dropping the slide on a paper towel. Idiots. She’s surrounded by idiots. Sweet, adorable idiots, but idiots nonetheless. 

“How opposed are you to grand theft?”

Dara’s eyes light up. “So you finally agree we should steal Alizayd’s book shipments and replace them with slime?”

“What? No, what the fuck. We need to go steal samples from Jamshid’s side of the lab without him knowing it was us.”

He ruffles her hair, and the half smile he aims at her is an arrow through the heart. “We’ll make a legend out of you yet, little thief.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Ugh!” Nahri throws her book across the bed and flops back dramatically. “I can’t read this book anymore.”

Dara pauses the show he’s watching and peeks at the book in question. It seems she’s moved on from those trashy dollar-store bodice rippers and moved on to some other weird romance genre, thank the Creator. He likes Nahri a lot (like, enough to make a genuine effort to be nice to her brother’s boyfriend and _his_ brother even though most days he wants to non-fatally maim the latter) but there’s only so many hour-long rants on the ‘enemies to lovers’ and ‘lack of sufficient slow-burn’ and ‘one bed trope’ he’s capable of sitting through.

(He still has no idea what any of those terms mean and at this point he’s too scared to ask.

“Did the guy fake cheat on her again?” he asks.

“No, even _worse_.”

“Oh, a mysterious ex from her past showed up and now she’s torn between the two even though it’s obvious she’s going to wind up with the first guy?”

“ _Worse_.” She rolls over to her stomach and stuffs her face into the pillow. Not for the first time, he has to wonder how the _hell_ she breathes with all those curls surrounding her head. Maybe he should slide over and brush them out of her face, twirl one around his finger because they _look_ soft and hopefully they _are_ soft because he’s seen the conditioner she uses; it’s expensive and supposed to smell like sandalwood and he _really_ likes sandalwood and Nahri so sandalwood _and_ Nahri together is an unholy aphrodisiac concocted just for him.

Dara pinches his wrist and scowls. No. Nope. Not today.

“One of them dies?”

“ _No._ She was _hospitalized_ ,” Nahri hisses. Dara nods slowly. He remembers this rant. 

“This is good, though. He’s supposed to be worried for her safety so he looks after her. Um…” he scrambles for the term, half-heard from a few months before, “Whump? It’s whump, right?”

“Yes! Except the doctor started reading out her _whole_ medical history in _front_ of the dude, which I’m willing to give a pass, but _then_ he reveals she’s been on tricyclic antidepressants to deal with the crippling depression from when her family was killed ten years earlier, which explains why she’s so freaked out trying to put her heart out in the world, but TCA’s? TCA’s are _barely_ ever used anymore! Like, do some _research_ , lady! And, oh my _God_ , don’t get me started on the fucking tests they ran. Why would they run a fucking _fMRI_ \--”

Her words fuzz out to background noise he’ll sort through later. Nahri props herself up on an elbow and blows strands of hair out of her face every time a curl touches her lips, which is often, and he _really_ wants to do that himself.

Dara’s learned a lot of weird shit from Nahri over the past few months. More than he’s ever learned in class and he _likes_ it. She doesn’t give him exasperated looks like the GAs and profs do when he asks for clarification. Stuff just doesn’t stick with him naturally but whatever she says, he remembers. 

Sure, her rants about mouth-pipetting and memorizing glycolysis and volunteering at the dialysis clinic make almost no sense to him when she _really_ gets into it, but he always makes sure to slip an energy bar into her bag for her four-hour labs and he helps her tack up flashcards before midterms and always has a latte ready for her after her shifts because that stuff _does_ make sense to him. Making Nahri smile is the easiest thing he’s done since taking his first breath.

It doesn’t take a lot to make her smile, but it’s the one constant in his life that makes _him_ smile, too.

“--and of course he’s like ‘we’ll have to do a biopsy to confirm’, like people do brain biopsies for shits and giggles! Honestly, this medicine is worse than Grey’s Anatomy and you _know_ how I feel about that show--” 

A curl falls on her lips again, and before she can blow it off, he’s there and picking it up, fingers brushing her lips. They’re soft. Everything _about_ her is soft and warm. Dara tucks the curl behind her ear almost reverently, tracing the edge of her jaw with his thumb and relishing in the redness of her face. Would it feel as warm under his lips as he feels in his chest?

Impulsively, he kisses her cheek and grins a little at her squeak. 

“What was that for?” Nahri yelps, rubbing her cheek. 

“Science,” Dara supplies, pushing his chair back to his desk and resuming his show. “Go back to reading, you know you’re not going to sleep if you don’t finish it.”

(It turns out his hypothesis was right. His lips burn for hours.)

(But, of course, Nahri’s always stressed the importance of multiple data points, so he’ll have to do it again.)

(For science.)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BUS STOP KISS 
> 
> Idk what I was thinking as I wrote this but here we goooooooooo

It starts like this:

It's raining. It's been raining all week, and the novelty of the weather wears off quick when it's all around him: the thousand stories on Instagram and Snapchat with the same songs and captions, the cold that settles into his lungs and refuses to leave, the pitter-patter that lulls him to sleep and greets him when he wakes. Dara's content to spend his days curled up in bed with the drapes pulled shut and his headphones set to deafening volumes, just so he can drown it out before it drowns him.

And then Nahri bursts into his room and drags him out the door before he has a chance to ask what she's doing. She's venting about something on their way to the bus stop but he can't make out a word she's saying; his music still thrums in his bones, distorting his vision. Or maybe it's the rain falling in sheets and pulling miles between them. 

It's always the rain.

The university says they will fix the broken bus shelter, but they've been saying that for as long as it's been broken. It doesn't offer any protection from the torrential downpour but there's still three walls that do their best to keep out the worst of the wind.

Nahri scowls at the heavens, ranting and raving as she pushes sopping wet curls out of her face and into a haphazard knot at the top of her head. It doesn't hold, falling back over her shoulders and sticking to her face. Dark circles line her eyes, her lips are cracked and bitten raw, cheeks a touch too flushed to be healthy, and Dara is so very in love with this messy whirlwind of a woman it nearly steals the ground from beneath him. 

But he can't love her. Not the way she deserves. 

Nahri is ambitious and driven and has a future so bright it blinds him sometimes, and Dara? Dara is none of that. He has no idea what he wants out of life and every day that passes by with his cousins getting job opportunities and research positions and accolades that their parents can proudly show off at every family gathering is a reminder of how far he's fallen. There was a point in time where Dara was the golden child. _He_ was the one they wrote epics about, the one they lauded as the finest of them all - the standard to which all the Afshin ought to be held. He had a future. A happy one. He doesn't anymore, really. There's no joy in going to class, no reason to get perfect grades or excel in his extracurriculars. 

People who post about how beautiful the rain is will never understand that it's only beautiful when you experience it in pieces. It's _ugly_. It's so very, very ugly, and Dara wishes he could go to bed warm and dry for once.

Nahri pokes him in the stomach suddenly, planting her hands on her hips and speaking to him. He loses himself in those sparkling eyes of hers and wonders what will happen the day he does somethng to inevitably make them lose their light. It always happens when people have expectations for him. They stick around too long and start to see the unsavoury parts of him and then they run. His heart seizes at the thought of her leaving even though he _knows_ it's in her best interest to go. Nahri's going to be a doctor and save lives and do great things, and she doesn't need him anchoring her to a place she doesn't belong.

But he wants her there. In whatever capacity he can have her, he wants her. He wants to smile because he knows she likes it when he does that, wants to be there with a caramel latte after every lab and midterm, relax while she complains about her quizzes and annoy her until she takes her breaks, and he wants to become one of the millions of stars that make up her universe. Nahri is _everything_ to him.

He pulls out his headphones, and the world explodes to life around him. The rain crashes on every surface, horns go off one after the other until he can't tell when one starts and the other ends, and Nahri is _annoyed_.

"-so _last minute_ , I'm gonna kill him for this! Like, who assigns something that late and expects a fully finished project three days later? We have to be all _creative_ about it which makes no sense to me. We're not in the fourth grade, just let me make a PowerPoint and call it a day! And don't even get me started on the fact that it's a group project. Ali's in my group and he's good about group work but he's so uptight about keeping to the rubric I don't think the creativity part is going to register with him, so it's a good thing we have Fiza because she's-"

He should leave. He should leave right now and let her thrive in this chaotic little world of hers where even at her most disorganized there is _vision_ and _clarity_. If he were a kind man, he would leave right now and never look back.

But Darayavahoush e-Afshin is a selfish, selfish man, and for the first time in _years_ he feels like there is something in his grasp that he can do well by.

Dara cups her cheeks, steps closer, and leans down until his lips are a hairsbreadth away from hers, waiting for her to pull back. Nahri freezes in his grasp, hands flying to clutch at his wrists, but she stays otherwise still. His eyes open, half-lidded, probing her face for a sign that he should stop. Confusion, surprise, the barest hints of relief and anticipation...nowhere in the beautiful salvation before him does he see a shred of fear or terror.

"Tell me to stop," he whispers, shuddering when he feels her breath fan across his face. She smells like home. She _is_ home. 

"No," she replies fiercely, pressing closer until he can feel the heat from her body. They're not at equilibrium yet - not even remotely close - but Dara can sense the energy shifting between them, latching onto him irreversibly. There is only forwards from here on out. They can never go back.

Dara kisses Nahri.

The rain continues to fall. 


End file.
